How much warmer or colder than average would sea surface temperatures be in the eastern tropical Pacific Ocean in April 2015? That's the question we asked participants to answer in our new online game, in which players pit their predictive powers against experts’ opinions. The answer is in...

A new analysis suggests that in the winter following a La Niña, dryness in California often deepens into drought. Consistent with that pattern, California’s current drought began in 2011-12, during the second year of a La Niña episode.

Uncommon atmospheric circumstances spawned a pair of tropical cyclones in the western Pacific—one on either side the equator, at nearly the same longitude, at nearly the same time. Why are twin cyclones more common during El Niño?

After a surprisingly rough summer for coral reefs in 2014, NOAA scientists are warning that warm ocean temperatures in the tropical Pacific and Indian Oceans could set the stage for a global outbreak of coral bleaching—the loss of corals’ food-producing algae—in 2015.

We're nine laps into the race to set a new global annual temperature record. NOAA climate scientist Deke Arndt talks about how this year's race might end--and why yearly rankings tell us less about the big picture of climate change than we might think.

Across the globe, changes in salinity over time generally match changes in precipitation: places where rainfall declines become saltier, while places where rainfall increases become fresher. Where did saltiness change over the past decade?